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Hugh Jackman is sharing painful secrets from his past in the latest issue of Australian Women's Weekly.

In the magazine's cover story, the 44-year-old actor opens up about how it felt when his mother, Grace Watson, abandoned him at age 8. According to Jackman, she fled to the U.K. and broke the news to her family via telegram.

"One of the main things I remember is that horrible feeling that people were talking about you and looking at you because it was odd for the mother to leave," the Les Miserables star recalls. It wasn't until the age of "12 or 13" that Jackman realized his mother would never return home.

After Jackman's parents divorced, his sisters, Zoe and Sonia, moved to England to live with their mother. The actor and his brothers, Ralph and Ian, stayed in Sydney, Australia, with their father, Chris.

Despite his mother's sudden departure, Jackman never questioned their bond. "The thing I never felt — and I know this might sound strange — I never felt that my mum didn't love me," the Aussie says. "I've spoken about it at length with her since and I know she was struggling. She was in hospital after I was born suffering from post-natal depression. There wasn't a support network for her here."

Once he became a married father of two — he and wife Deborra-Lee Furness are parents to Oscar and Ava — Jackman was finally able to forgive his mother. "There comes a certain point in life when you have to stop blaming other people for how you feel or the misfortunes in your life," the star says. "You can't go through life obsessing about what might have been."